


book club thursdays

by hoeunki



Series: huang family shenanigans [2]
Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, High School, M/M, Married Life, dads!luren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26284861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoeunki/pseuds/hoeunki
Summary: renjun tells lihua the story of how her fathers met.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Series: huang family shenanigans [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632475
Comments: 13
Kudos: 83





	book club thursdays

**Author's Note:**

> long time no see my friends :]
> 
> i decided to work on this oneshot that's been meditating in my wips folder for a while because i realised that I need to actually write more than one fic in a series for it to actually be a series :P

"Lihua," Renjun called, closing the door to his study and entering the living room, where his daughter was diligently coloring with Lucas.

"Purple, please." Renjun bit back a smile as she tapped Lucas' arm and he automatically reached for the purple pencil before handing it to her. Lucas himself was very engrossed in the intricate details of a garden wagon, shading each petal carefully and keeping within the lines. 

"Lihua," Renjun repeated, "It's bedtime now. You can finish coloring tomorrow."

She looked up with a pout. "But Daddy's still coloring." 

Lucas ruffled her hair. "I don't have a bedtime because I'm an adult, sweetheart. When you grow older we can colour until midnight."

"Actually, Daddy is going to clean up and pack the coloring stuff away." Lucas was about to protest when Renjun gave him a stern look. "Now." 

It was Lucas' turn to pout as he followed Renjun's order, collecting all the stray pencils and the books to store under their coffee table. Renjun walked over to Lucas and squeezed his shoulder before planting a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."

"No problem," Lucas mumbled, blushing. 

Lihua, with her stuffed rabbit in hand, tugged on Renjun's sleeve. "Can you tell me a bedtime story?" she asked, blinking up at him. Her eyes, wide and innocent, were near impossible to say no to (a weapon she so skillfully wielded in the supermarket). 

"Of course," Renjun smiled, holding his hand out for her to take. "Which story would you like?"

Lihua tapped her chin thoughtfully as they walked to her room. "Hmm…I wanna hear the one about how you and Daddy met."

"But you've heard that one so many times," he chuckled, opening the door for her.

Lihua climbed into her bed without complaint, nestling comfortably between her pillows and pulling her blanket up to her chin. She held her rabbit tightly and looked up at Renjun with a grin. 

"That's because it's one of my favorites."

"You sure you don't want another story?" At this rate, Renjun had a feeling she was going to end up a hopeless romantic, just like him. 

She shook her head firmly. "Nope."

Renjun sighed. She won this time. "Alright, sweetheart. Here we go."

_"Once upon a time, Uncle Hyuckie took me to book club…"_

It was during lunch. Thursday lunch, Renjun remembered, because that was when they served kimchi jeon and Jaemin would always charm his way into getting an extra piece for them all to share. He was enjoying his lunch when Donghyuck plopped down on the seat next to him and looped his arms around Renjun's waist, chin on his shoulder as he smiled up at Renjun with a mischievous grin. 

"Hey _baobei,_ " Donghyuck drawled, puckering his lips for a smooch. 

Renjun snorted and poked Donghyuck's cheek with the clean end of his chopstick. "What is it this time? Unfinished homework?"

"On the contrary, my dear. I'm taking you with me to book club."

Jaemin choked on a spoonful of rice and Jeno immediately turned to thump him on the back, pushing his water bottle forward. 

Renjun raised an eyebrow at his best friend. "Since when were you interested in literary discussions?"

"Since, like, forever."

Jaemin, who had recovered from his coughing fit, slapped his leg. "You told Professor Lee that you only read webtoons and manhwa."

"Which are _very_ educational and interesting, Na Jaemin." Donghyuck stuck his tongue out and turned back to Renjun. "So. Pretty please, _best friend_?"

Renjun sighed. He wasn't sure what Donghyuck's ulterior motives were yet, but he didn't really have a choice. And book club seemed pretty tame for a guy like Donghyuck. How much trouble could he be up to?

"Alright," Renjun conceded. "But you have to tell me the real reason why you want me there."

Jeno nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Hyuck. We all know you're up to something."

Donghyuck looked around at his friends, who were all waiting with expectant expressions. After a moment of hesitation, he sighed. "Fine. I just-"

"It was to see Uncle Marky!" Lihua cheered, clapping her hands together. 

Renjun gently pinched her cheek. "That's right, baby. Uncle Hyuckie was very shy around Uncle Marky and so he asked me to come because he was nervous."

Lihua stroked the ears of her stuffed rabbit. "He had butterflies, right?"

"Butterflies?"

"You know," Lihua's voice softened and she looked down at her lap. "Daddy said when you get nervous around the person you like, you get tummy butterflies."

Renjun smiled and brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes. "Yes, sweetheart. Uncle Hyuckie's tummy butterflies were very noisy." 

Lihua looked up at her Papa. "Did you get tummy butterflies when you first saw Daddy?"

"I'm not even at that part of the story, Lihua."

"Then hurry up!" she huffed impatiently. After a beat, she added a 'please'.

Renjun laughed. "Okay."

It was after school now, warm sunlight flooding the empty buildings. Donghyuck twiddled his thumbs nervously as they strolled past classrooms. 

Renjun glanced at him. "I thought you said Mark invited you. Why are you so nervous?"

"I'm just worried I'll say something dumb and embarrass myself in front of his friends," Donghyuck sighed. "Mark's cute, y'know? Like actually cute. I don't want to mess this up."

Renjun slung his arm around Donghyuck's shoulder. "Just be natural, Hyuck. Mark knows you and you know him. If you say something stupid, I'll be a good friend and laugh along to pretend it was funny." 

"Idiot," Donghyuck snorted, elbowing Renjun in the ribs. But the grateful smile on his face told Renjun he felt otherwise. 

They reached the classroom and Donghyuck pushed the door open without hesitation, greeting the occupants with a cheery hello. Renjun looked around, confused at the lack of people in the room. There were only two boys: Mark Lee and his best friend Lucas Wong, who was sitting by the window with his feet propped up on a desk.

"Welcome to book club!" Mark greeted. "Glad to see new faces, because we don't usually… get any other visitors…" he trailed off with an awkward laugh, and Renjun internally winced. _This_ was the guy Donghyuck was crushing on?

Donghyuck didn't seem to care about the awkwardness, falling into easy conversation with Mark. The rest of the world seemed to no longer exist to the two as they took a seat across each other, chatting amicably about things definitely not in the contents of Mark's copy of _Pride and Prejudice._

Renjun sighed and made his way over to Lucas. They'd never spoken one on one, but Renjun had seen a few of his basketball games and there was definitely something magnetic about him. Perhaps it was his strikingly handsome features, or his loud laugh, or maybe the fact that he was really fucking tall. All Renjun knew for sure was that he had a really hard time looking away from him whenever he passed by in the hallways.

Lucas looked up, adjusting the wiry pair of glasses that Renjun didn’t even know he wore. He brushed his freshly dyed brown hair out of his eyes and gave Renjun a small smile. 

"Hey. Renjun, right?" It was the first time Lucas had ever said his name and _wow,_ he had a nice voice. Deep, smooth, like warm honey. 

Renjum nodded. "Yup. Huang Renjun. Nice to meet you." 

"Huang?" Lucas blinked. "Hey, we have the same last name."

It took a moment for Renjun to connect the dots, belatedly realising that they had both conversed in Mandarin. He flushed pink at Lucas' simple observation but thankfully Lucas had already resumed flipping through his poetry book and didn't notice. 

"So…" Renjun took a seat atop the adjacent desk. "What do you guys normally do at book club?"

Lucas fished a bookmark out of his pocket and slid it into his page. "Not much, honestly. Sometimes we find an interesting book and actually talk about it. Y'know, analysis and stuff. Otherwise we mostly just chill and hang out.”

“‘We’ being just you and Mark?” Renjun looked over at the boy, who was currently in fits over something apparently hilarious that Donghyuck said. 

Lucas handed Renjun a strawberry lollipop (where did he get that from?) and unwrapped one for himself. “Dejun and Hendery come over sometimes. But Hendery only reads manga and Dejun likes self help books so we can never quite agree on one book for all of us to read.”

Renjun pushed the lollipop around his mouth with his tongue, listening to it clack against his teeth as he tried to recall those names. He remembered meeting Dejun once at the gym. The guy was singing along to the _Hairspray_ soundtrack while lifting insane weights. Hendery was a bit of an enigma though. Renjun’s only impression of the dude was him twerking topless on the dining table at one of Yangyang’s house parties. 

“Do you like to read?” Lucas asked.

"Not really," Renjun admitted. "I just borrow art books from the library for project purposes." 

"Oh, so you're an artist?" 

"It's just a hobby."

"Doesn't mean you can't call yourself an artist."

He didn’t have a reply to that. Renjun looked down at Lucas, who simply grinned, and maybe there was something in the afternoon sun, but Renjun found himself strangely endeared by the slight crookedness of his front teeth. 

“Would you call yourself a poet, then?” Renjun vaguely gestured to the poetry book in Lucas’ hand. His large fingers were obscuring the title but he could just make out the words ‘collection’ and ‘Southeast Asia’ written in smaller font.

Lucas glanced down, thinking for a few seconds before pulling the candy from his lips. "Not yet."

"Yet?"

A playful glint danced in his irises. "For now, I am but a humble enthusiast of the written word. Too inexperienced in life to craft my own. My soul has not been exposed to the cold winds of heartbreak, nor the dreary rain of adulthood. It is fragile, pure, um..."

“Guileless?” Renjun supplied.

“I was thinking ‘naive’, but that works too.” 

There was a pause before they both burst into laughter. Lucas had a laugh that bubbled up from deep within his chest, one that shook his whole body and showed off all of his teeth. Renjun barely noticed the smile lines around the eyes before they disappeared. 

_He has really nice eyes,_ Renjun thought to himself as they lapsed into silence.

“Hey guys,” Mark interrupted, and Renjun almost had to force himself to break Lucas’ gaze. “Do you wanna grab dinner together later? There’s this great kalguksu restaurant just a few stations away.”

Donghyuck grinned at Renjun, shooting him a sly wink as his gaze flickered meaningfully between him and Lucas. Renjun rolled his eyes, hoping that his cheeks weren’t betraying him. 

“Yes!!!” Lucas cheered, pumping his fist in the air. “I love that place.” Renjun nodded along, unable to hide his amused smile. 

Time seemed to fly by with Lucas and Mark. They were chatty in a way that never got irritating and somehow never let the conversation get boring. By the end of their meal, Renjun felt as though he had just finished eating with childhood friends he hadn’t met in a few years.

Before they parted ways that night, Lucas caught him at the bus stop.

"I just remembered," he said, a little out of breath. Renjun wondered how fast he must've run to be panting like this. "My cousin gave me her copy of this book I think you'd like. It's a biographical novel about Michelangelo. If you come to book club next week, I can lend it to you."

There was something in his tone, a hint of hope, perhaps. Under the dim streetlamp, Renjun felt his heart beat a few milliseconds faster.

“I’ll see you next week, then.”

"Nice," Lucas said, grinning that toothy grin of his. "I'm looking forward to it."

What Renjun didn’t know, however, was that his next visit to book club would merely be the second sentence of a new chapter in his life. A chapter filled with laughter, music, dumb moments, good food, and romance. That Renjun at the bus stop would never imagine spending the rest of his Thursday afternoons in a classroom on the third floor, with Mark and Donghyuck and Lucas and eventually all their other friends who didn’t want to be left out of the fun. He’d never picture them celebrating their birthdays together, gossiping about their classmates, or teasing Mark to no end as he tried to facilitate serious book discussions. 

But that’s exactly what happened.

Renjun would fall in love with the tall boy that insisted on walking him home when it got late. The boy who would leave sappy messages in his locker, blushed really hard whenever Renjun kissed him goodbye, and always got paint on his cheeks when he slept beside him in the art studio. He'd fall in love with the same boy who grew into the man of his dreams, the love of his life, the man that he ended up marrying and adopting a child with.

And maybe it was fate. 

Maybe it was thanks to Renjun’s best friend who asked him to come along that afternoon.

Maybe it was Mark Lee’s fault for inviting said best friend.

Or maybe, it was because of _his_ best friend who happened to be a little lonely in book club.

Who really knows?

"... _All that matters is that they lived happily ever after_."

Lihua yawned, rubbing sleepily at her eyes with the sleeve of her nightgown. "Does Daddy still write you poems, Papa?"

“Only sometimes, sweetheart. On special occasions.” Lucas preferred to write longer poems now, anything from a haiku to a sonnet or even an ode, if he were feeling especially creative. They all had one thing in common though: they were poems about love.

“But you kept them, right? The old ones?”

Renjun bit back a laugh, thinking about the notebook hidden in his desk drawer, pages full of sticky notes and scraps of paper with couplets (some wholesome and some not so wholesome) scribbled on them. He’d have to filter through them before he showed them to Lihua. 

“Yes. I kept every single one.”

She yawned again, sinking further into her blanket. “I wanna learn how to write a poem.”

“You can ask Daddy to teach you sometime.” Renjun cupped her cheek, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, Lihua.”

“Nighty,” she mumbled, already on her way to dreamland. Renjun stood up and made sure that her lion-shaped night light was on before turning the rest of her lights off and exiting the room. 

Lucas greeted him in the kitchen with a warm bowl of salty and sweet popcorn. Renjun immediately opened his mouth, letting Lucas feed him a few pieces. “Lihua’s taking an interest in poetry, by the way.”

“I always knew she was an intellectual." Lucas smiled as he took a sip of his orange juice. 

"She also asked if I kept all the stuff you wrote for me in high school."

Lucas choked and Renjun laughed, reaching for a tissue to wipe his mouth with. "Maybe we can wait a few years before revealing that," he coughed out. 

Renjun hummed, wrapping his arms around Lucas' neck. "I remember you being proud of rhyming 'thicc' with 'dick' in that one couplet. A personal favorite, if I'm being honest." Jaemin had nearly read that particular poem aloud for the whole corridor to hear. 

Lucas groaned. "Young Lucas had a really long way to go." 

"It's okay." Renjun tiptoed to kiss the space between Lucas' eyebrows, knowing that he'd close his eyes and scrunch his nose in that adorable way he always did. 

"We were just losers in book club, after all."

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes i post short stuff about the huang fam on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/takadactyl)  
> (i hope this made you smile at least once <3)


End file.
